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Weapons. We did 21 count jo kata again last night. After reviewing the kata we were told to imagine we were being attacked by several people which would help to get us beyond just going through the motions. When I tried to envision multiple attackers I felt like I had no control over the jo. I became tense and tired easily. (My imagination might be too active.)

When we were doing techniques with yokomen the instructor, a senior student, said to hold the jo loosely, not to grip it tight because then uke's body absorbs a lot of the shock from any blocks. When he was demonstrating the yokomen strike you could hear this "whoosh" sound. Very Cool. His technique is really crisp.

He said later that he is way more comfortable with weapons than he is with open hand techniques. He described the intensity of the Saturday morning weapons class which is conducted by one of the nidans. Someone got hit last week. Yikes. Some sage advice from last night… "block the incoming strike if nothing else." Kind of like when you're doing open hand techniques they say, "Get out of the way if nothing else."

At the end of class we did jodori. The outside of my left wrist has been bothering me for a while, so last night when I was grabbing the jo and he was applying a technique it really bothered me. I've been doing jo warm up exercises at home to strengthen my wrists since they're puny. It has helped a bit. In May we had Chiba Sensei at our dojo for a week long seminar. His wrists are GARGANTUAN.

Well, that's just great. I just whacked my left wrist real good on my keyboard. Time to stop.